


falta amor

by figure8



Category: K-pop, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enlistment, Future Fic, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Reunions, Tenderness, post-disbandment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23449591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/figure8/pseuds/figure8
Summary: “Wonwoo,” Junhui says, a green ceramic mug dangling from his index finger. He doesn’t look surprised. He does look relieved.“Don’t drop the cup,” Wonwoo says, when what he really is trying to say isJunnie. Junnie.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Wen Jun Hui | Jun
Comments: 32
Kudos: 260
Collections: ENFANT D'ÉTÉ - ROUND 1





	falta amor

**Author's Note:**

> [listen](https://youtu.be/tLfGaU29oZw).
> 
> tw for mentions of homophobic slurs, implied military hazing, internalized homophobia.

_If only you knew how beautiful your mouth is, you would kiss me on the eyes that I might not see you._

— Y. RITSOS

  
  
  
  


There is no one waiting for Wonwoo on the day he’s discharged— no one he recognizes, anyway. He told his parents not to come, texted Seungcheol ten times to make sure no one would try to surprise him. A handful of teenage girls wave at him when he exits the gate, and they cheer as he gets into the first cab that stops for him. He waves back, behind the dirty glass of the car window. The motion feels clunky, his arm rusted metal. He’s lost the habit, the reflex-ease with which he used to grin no matter how exhausted or unhappy he felt. The old man in the driver's seat congratulates him, and then he switches the radio on. Wonwoo presses the side of his head to the seatbelt, lets the bittersweet ballad wash over him as Seoul greets him again in a gradient of grey and green and yellow, shapes melting into each other as the car glides through the city. The song ends, and another one comes on, and then another one, and Wonwoo does not recognize any of them. He drums his fingers to their rhythm anyway against his thigh, staccato, by rote. Music is an old friend. Even when most people leave, she doesn’t. 

  
  
  


The building is taller than he remembers. Brighter, too; smooth glass and white cement, sleek in a way that hurts the eye, too modern. It must have been renovated while Wonwoo was gone, he thinks, because he recalls smoother lines, warmer greys. His duffle bag is heavy in his hand as he walks past the doorman, heavier still during the elevator ride. At the pit of his stomach there is a dragon suddenly awake, the anxiety so sudden and unexpected he finds himself a little breathless, as if he’d taken the stairs instead. He hauls the bag over his shoulder, bites his lip. There are many things he would do differently, now, looking back. He can almost see the paths forking in the horizon, multicolored roads stretching and intertwining like vines. The key in his pocket burns when he slides his hand in, sun-warmed steel. That simple sensation, metal against flesh, he is so grateful for it. The elevator dings. Wonwoo inhales, deeply, the cold air of the AC acrid under his tongue. Inside his ribcage his heart is a frantic bird. Loneliness is a strange ache, marrow-deep. There are thirty-two steps between the elevator and the apartment door, through this narrow corridor, and he counts them all. 

  
  
  


Junhui is singing. Wonwoo closes the door behind him, very carefully, almost noiseless. He drops the duffle bag in the entryway, gets rid of his shoes, feels a pang in his chest at the sight of Junhui’s loafers tidily waiting in the corner. 

His throat is too dry for the words he wants to push through, his voice unused. Which is a lie, kinda, because Wonwoo has been talking, for the past twenty-three months; but when he shapes _Junnie_ in his mouth it bursts like a soap bubble, soundless. Junhui is in the kitchen, half-humming, lyrics half-formed, emptying the dishwasher. And then he turns around. 

“Wonwoo,” he says, a green ceramic mug dangling from his index finger. He doesn’t look surprised. He does look relieved. 

“Don’t drop the cup,” Wonwoo says, when what he really is trying to say is _Junnie. Junnie._

Junhui places the mug on the counter, delicately. His hair is longer than the last time Wonwoo saw him, a deep chestnut color, framing his jaw curved inwards. In Wonwoo’s belly the dragon whines, hungry. 

“You look good,” Junhui says. Light, almost— disinterested. It rings hollow, in this minimalist kitchen Wonwoo didn’t decorate. He knows he doesn’t look good. He looks stronger, maybe, and darker. Sunkissed, although the touch of the sun never quite felt like a lover’s, in the past two years. Sunhit, maybe. Sunstruck. Sunhated. 

“Junnie,” Wonwoo says. It’s a broken word on his lips, fractured right in the middle. A plea. Junhui’s face splits from carefully guarded to honest, finally _open_ the way Wonwoo remembers— knows him. _I missed you,_ Wonwoo doesn’t say, because he is gasping for air and everything is water. _My body hurts from your absence._

Junhui places a warm palm on his chest, through the slim fabric of Wonwoo’s anthracite shirt. Wonwoo wraps his fingers around his wrist, loose bracelet, to keep him there. He thinks— he isn’t sure. He wants— and that is much harder to formulate. Junhui slides his hand higher, and Wonwoo follows, still holding him. Up, to the side of his neck, Junhui’s fingers on his nape where there is no hair to grip. They are very close, now. Junhui lowers his head, presses his mouth above Wonwoo’s heart, over his shirt. Wonwoo thinks, _ah._ In his stomach, cataclysmic, the dragon howls. 

  
  
  


“Jun,” he gasps, the floor hard against his shoulder blades. He is used to sleeping on hard surfaces, the unpleasantness of a bad mattress, of rock. “Junnie,” he gasps, back arching into the gentlest of touches. 

Junhui pins his hip down, grip strong on Wonwoo’s thigh, thumb digging at the juncture, where the skin is tender. His mouth is warm, and slick, and he is kind even when he is harsh. Wonwoo bucks up, oxygen trapped within his lungs and then unleashed, one hand buried in Junhui’s soft hair. 

“You feel—” he says, attempts to, and, “Fuck— Junnie—”

  
  
  


The first six weeks, during bootcamp, Wonwoo slept on the ground. It wasn’t mandatory; there were cots in the barracks, thin blankets and round pillows. He tried that at first, of course. But he couldn’t catch a drop of rest, with the springs whining at his every move, and the vague feeling of _nothingness_ under him. The floor, at least, brought back a kinder memory, the familiar comfort of the practice room. Like that, body aching, it had been so much easier to close his eyes and sleep.

  
  
  


“You said you’d call,” Junhui murmurs, tracing patterns of fire on Wonwoo’s left pectoral. Wonwoo grimaces. 

“It was easier not to.”

Junhui lifts himself on one elbow. His eyes are dark. Wonwoo wants to kiss him, wants to press him to the soft rug and kiss him until he can’t think, wants with a vastness that terrifies him. 

“Was it, really?”

He sounds curious more than resentful. When Wonwoo had told him not to visit, he had tilted his head to the side like a cat, frowned. _But I’ll call, every time I can,_ Wonwoo can still hear himself promise. He wonders if Junhui knew then already, well before him, that it would take Wonwoo a week and a half to break every single promise he had made— to himself and to others. It would explain, certainly, his resignation— the lack of anger. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Wonwoo says, which is true. But he owes Junhui— something. So he amends, “I don’t want to talk about it now.” 

There’s only so many times you can be called a sissy and a fag before it stings like a tattoo, before it starts feeling permanent on your skin. When Wonwoo shuts his eyes he hears the drill sergeant yell, even in Junhui’s living room. He doesn’t know how to explain this, how to tell Junhui that for twenty-three months Wonwoo was someone else; someone simultaneously ten times faker than Seventeen’s Wonwoo but also a truer, less polished version of the boy Junhui knows. How to explain that every decision has been pure instinct, survival trained into him through repetition and pain. Idolhood had prepared him better than anything else, for the dull _sameness_ of it. It had made it easier to obey wordlessly, too. It had made it harder in every other way. _Pretty boy, sing us a song._

“I’m sorry I didn’t call,” Wonwoo says finally. “You said—” he stumbles on his own sentence, “You gave me the key. You said, after, that I could. I— you said that I could,” he finishes helplessly. Junhui looks sad. Still, more than anything, Wonwoo wants to kiss him. 

“Of course you can,” Junhui says. “I thought you’d go to your parents first,” he admits. “But I was waiting.” 

Wonwoo doesn’t say, _I counted the days, I counted the seconds._ But he does slot his mouth against Junhui’s, messy in his hunger, and he does roll over until Junhui is under him, resting against the soft plushy rug, cushioned and comfortable and kissed. _Kissed._

  
  
  


“What kind of food did you miss the most?” Junhui asks, and Wonwoo’s brain floods with endless possibilities. It’s impossible to choose, suddenly. 

“You pick,” he says. “Something spicy?” 

“Chinese?” Junhui smiles. “I’ll cook. Or we can order. Whatever you want.” 

“Cook,” Wonwoo says. “Homemade, homemade sounds nice.” 

He presses his face to Junhui’s shoulder while he’s at the stove, focused on the stir-fry. Inhales, breathes him in. He changed his cologne, but his shampoo is the same. Wonwoo loves him. It hurts, profoundly, where his spleen is. The dragon is everywhere in his body. 

  
  
  


Junhui asks when he’s planning to travel to Changwon. It’s been three days, and Wonwoo has no answer. He misses his mother in a fierce, overwhelming way. He misses their little house, and he misses Bohyuk. He wants to see them, and he also does not want to leave this apartment, not even for groceries, not even for a walk. 

He does crunches by series of 250 in Junhui’s living room, the sun filtering in through the large window, and his skin burns pleasantly after that for hours. Junhui jokes about buying him a barbell bench and Wonwoo imagines it, imagines something solid and heavy and immovable in Junhui’s space like that, something his. 

  
  
  


The night before he was supposed to leave for basic, Junhui helped him shave his head. He had put it off until the very last minute, the anxiety paralyzing, which in retrospective was stupid, he knows that now. It had helped, at least— sitting on the edge of his bathtub, the quiet rumble of the electric razor, and Junhui’s steady hand. 

_You can’t come visit,_ he had whispered afterwards, in the darkness, like a fucking coward. But even in the chiaroscuro he could still distinguish Junhui’s feline gaze, his wordless hurt. 

_If you come,_ he had tried to justify himself, _they will know._ He hadn’t known how to say it then, and he still doesn’t think he’d know how to say it now, in a way that wasn’t insulting, that wasn’t awful. Anyone who looks at you will know, he had thought but hadn’t verbalized, thank God. Anyone with fucking eyes would know, although not just because of _Jun,_ he understands that now. You and me in the same room, he could have said, we are so loud, even when we don’t speak. You and me in the same room, we are undeniable. 

_But I’ll call, every time I can. Any opportunity. I promise._ Bartering. Political negotiations. And just like a politician, he had done none of that. Go figure. 

  
  
  


“Wonwoo,” Junhui breathes, so sweet against Wonwoo’s spine, solid behind Wonwoo, _real._ “Sweetheart, I love you like this, I missed you.” 

Wonwoo bites the inside of his own wrist, fingers flexing against the pale pink sheets. I love you, I love you _like this,_ I love you _here._

“Harder,” he asks for it and his voice is so hoarse, fragile. “Fuck, Junnie— please— harder.” 

Junhui’s lips are on the back of his neck again, aerial, branding nonetheless. With every thrust the bed moves, the headboard knocks against the wall. Wonwoo revels in the metronome beat of it, proof of life, proof of—

“Harder,” he begs once more. _Remind me. Remind me._

  
  
  


Rifle lodged against his shoulder, in his arms like a precious lover, he was taught how to shoot laying in dirt, the smell of earth so strong it didn’t leave for hours after, lingered in the air around him even after a thorough shower. 

_Focus, private!_ One eye shut, the other wide open. Through the scope everything had looked tiny and blurry, unreachable. He remembers hearing his own heart in his ears. _Focus, private!_

In the end it wasn’t so different from dancing. Practice makes perfect, and by God, Wonwoo knows how to practice. His arms had been so sore, after, his strength all gone, his ears always ringing. 

He had wanted to call, then. To pick up the phone, dial the well-known number, hear Junhui’s cheerful voice answer in confused Mandarin. Obviously, he hadn’t. 

  
  
  


Before… before looks and tastes and smells like someone else’s life, now. An out of body experience that does not belong to him. The screams and the stage and the blinding lights, he remembers them the way one remembers a foreign country. Visited, sometimes even loved, but still foreign. He doesn’t think he would be able to go back even if he was given the opportunity— and he will not be given the opportunity. He misses it, too, the way one misses a place well-traveled. It is a comfortable nostalgia. He catches himself rapping in the shower, on good days. He catches Junhui twirling in the kitchen, always a dancer. With his hands on Junhui’s waist it is easier. When they kiss Wonwoo can taste Junhui’s old life too. They are refugees from a country that never existed. There are only eleven other people in the world who can understand this, and Wonwoo loves them, but there is no one else he wants to dance with like this. Only Junhui. 

  
  
  


Junhui had given him the bronze-colored key on Chuseok the first year, when Wonwoo still held illusions in his palms like sand and water. 

_I bought a condo,_ he had grinned. The acting was going well, then, Wonwoo remembers thinking. _It’s empty still, but it looks nice even from the outside. Wanna see?_

They had ridden the metro to Gongdeok, and Junhui had pointed at the big window on the seventh floor, and then he had given Wonwoo a key. 

_When you’re done,_ he had mumbled, uncharacteristically shy. _When you’re— back._

Wonwoo had wanted to kiss him there, in the middle of the street. Junhui’s eyes were sparkling with something akin to joy, sadness mixed in like milk and coffee, twirling. 

  
  
  


Wonwoo doesn’t unpack the black duffle bag for weeks. When he does he starts with the outside pocket, fishes out a folded polaroid of Seungcheol and Mingyu grinning at the camera in California, colors faded, washed out. It has resided in that pocket for the entire duration of Wonwoo’s service, never taken out, never unfolded.

After that come the clothes, neatly rolled and still smelling of the cheap laundry powder they all used back on base, and of the faint odor of petrol, infused through the cotton, never quite killed by boiling water. He stares at the dark grey sweatpants, the black t-shirts, and his pair of fatigues. He could hang them on his side of the closet, technically. The shirts especially are so nondescript, he could wear them out running. He rolls them up again, tight, zips up the bag, shoves the whole thing under the bed. 

The photograph he pins to the fridge, next to the grocery list and the theater tickets Junhui has there under a magnet for some reason. Seungcheol stares back at him every time he gets out the carton of orange juice. Wonwoo finds it oddly reassuring.

  
  
  


Junhui is terrible at being a person in the morning, bleary-eyed and directionless until he’s had three cups of black tea and the arm of the clock has moved far enough. Wonwoo rises early, too used to the emptiness of dawn. Junhui has an espresso machine in his kitchen, and beans sourced directly from Ethiopia, but Wonwoo reaches for the instant Nescafe packets every day, force of habit. It makes Junhui scrunch up his nose in disgust every time he catches him in the act, but when Wonwoo uses the last little packet there is a brand new box sitting in the cupboard the next morning. 

  
  
  



End file.
